The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #60467

Alice K. Marcee, DVM, MS¹, Nora Gimpel, MD¹, Jim Walton, DO², and Mark J. DeHaven, PhD³. (1) Department of Family Practice and Community Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center Dallas, 6263 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390-9067, (214) 648-1039, alice.marcee@utsouthwestern.edu, (2) Church Health Ministries, 801 North Peak Street, Dallas, TX 75246, (3) Department of Family Practice and Community Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, 6263 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390-9067

A three-year community-based participatory prevention research project funded by the CDC, examines the outcomes of a collaborative, community-based system of healthcare for the uninsured. Conceived in 1997, “Project Access: Caring for the Uninsured,” (PA) is a community initiated and administered collaboration between community-based care providers and hospitals, the faith-community, business, and public health. The program provides access to care for the "working poor" who are ineligible for existing publicly-funded health care. Critical to the success of PA, and other community-based programs, is the ability to successfully collect the data needed to evaluate program effectiveness. The development of efficient and effective data quality control processes eliminates errors and rework, reduces personnel time, and improves a programs' ability to produce reliable indicators of effectiveness. However, community-administered programs present unique challenges for evaluators, especially when diverse stakeholders collect large amounts of data at various community-based sites. PA data collection and management processes were evaluated during a 6-month pilot study. Collaboration and communication were recognized as critical throughout the process improvement cycle for data collection. A data collection protocol, responsibility matrix, standardized training materials, and operational oversight components were developed and applied to the process with input from the community-based and university-based collaborators. The results of this program provide critical information for health policy researchers, and decision-makers in government, public health, medicine and nursing, and community organizations about how to most efficiently obtain the highest level of data quality in the evaluation of community-based programs.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to:
• 1.Describe and discuss various quality control methods and their contributions to community-based program evaluations.
• 2.Understand the procedure for developing and implementing quality control methods into a process improvement program.
• 3.Implement a process improvement program and monitor its effectiveness.

Keywords: Quality Improvement, Data Collection

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.